A Bridge For Everyone

There are some stories that never leave your memory. It does not matter how you came to know the story; whether it unfolded before you, whether you were told or whether it is something you read in the papers, it just does not go away. I had a lot of them. One of them was about Agnes. I remember how I learnt of her story. I read about it and for a long time after, I just kept staring at the paper.

Young Agnes must have been about five years old when she took her last walk with her earthly protector- her father. It was a walk to her school and he made one very fatal mistake. He chooses not to use the pedestrian bridge. I guess it happened in a flash because survival instinct made dear father run for life leaving his daughter behind. By the time he became aware of what he had done, she was lifeless on the road. The tears that followed after he picked her up did not change the fact that by one single negligent act, Agnes’ dreams and aspirations were cut off.

Why am I recounting this story? Why will it not even be swept away with the sands of time?

Perhaps it is because the mistake has still not been corrected. Even after decades of my learning of the story, I still see countless persons take a quick dash to the opposite side of the road rather than use the bridge above. I do not claim to be a saint in this regard as I shamefully admit to have done this on more than one, two three, five occasions.  I know of a pedestrian bridge that is hardly ever used. That is where I take my guilty verdict mostly. It is a little consolatory that motorists are aware of the fact that the bridge is hardly used by pedestrians so they slow down when approaching the bus stop. That I must say is no excuse as it is clearly a misunderstanding of purpose. A lot of users including my humble self misunderstand the purpose for which the bridge was mounted. Maybe not misunderstood, but we take for granted the humane and generous attitude of drivers who slow down at that particular spot to allow pedestrians go past the road in safety.

While I make give myself all kinds of excuses concerning not using a bridge as illustrated in the last paragraph, what happens when someone deliberately refuses to use a bridge that is across a busy road? Will it be out of place to term this as suicide or an attempt to commit suicide?

I put up this discussion with my friends one evening and Onome called my attitude an exaggeration.

‘Come on,’ she said “Nigerians like life. Calling it outright suicide means you are divorced from the reality of our love for life”

“Okay o”, I shrugged.

It was far from okay with me. I am originally from a town which cannot till date boast of a single pedestrian bridge. This is in spite of the fact that a major road runs across the town. Accidents on this road are usually major and mostly arise from pedestrians trying to cross to the other side of the road. God’s grace has been magnanimous because it has taught residents to be extra careful when making these crossings. I can imagine how excited if the bridge across, rather than the big screen street television that had been the contribution of the government of the day. It would be a total disappointment if that bridge were to be abandoned after a few years for no other reason other than laziness or the ‘it is not my portion’ phrase.

Yes, laziness is one of the reasons I have seen that prevents people from using these bridges across. Why go through a path that will take twice the amount of time if you jumped in front of a moving car and make a quick dash? Most people will of course deny this reason and lace it with the phrase aforementioned. It cannot be their portion to be involved in any accident of any kind even though they have been out rightly careless.

I do not have the capacity to judge, being a culprit myself but I have resolved to work on my used to be stupid haste. I have started to work on it but I dare not commend myself for fear that my resolve might break. I also believe that having made my thoughts and struggles public, I have created a watch dog for me. I hope this watch dog watches more than just me.

Keep faith.

STREET TALES

The streets tell a different story. Different from the one we (or I should talk of myself?); different from the one I have heard from the lips of the government.  They say that street- begging has been banned. To rephrase, if the meaning would be different, is to say that to beg is an offence.

The story on the streets emphasizes that street begging was and is still a very viable trade. It is not like I mean to sound mean but if the truth must be told; I have never seen as much beggars in this town as in any other town that I have visited previously. So I thought with the ban of street begging, the society we live in would, at least, not smell of so much of poverty.  I will save the talk on poverty for another time and focus on how my dream was dashed. Not dashed without hope but dashed anyways.

I used to be uncomfortable with the beggars on the streets; I did not know what to do to make the situation any better so I used to avoid them. I used to ask myself what my five or ten naira could do to alleviate poverty in the families that I see their representatives on the streets. I wondered how many loaves of bread the sum would buy or how many cups of garri that could be bought. How many books could be bought or even how many drugs could be afforded on the meagre collections raised from the streets? I was even more pained when I noticed that the beggar was a young mother with twin babies.  It took me a while to understand that it was believed that the spirits associated with twins was responsible for calling both mother and babies to beg in the streets. After that I began to wonder why the spirits did not work on twin babies born of rich parents.

With time I stopped being uncomfortable with seeing so much beggars on the streets. I got used to them. Getting used to them surely did not make it easier for me to give to them. I simply learnt to ignore them. I believed (still believe) that most of them are miniature fraudsters. What else would you call putting on a catheter with urine that is probably not yours or pretending to be blind or even taking up a collection for oneself while labelling it as belong to the under privileged. Moreso I had had a nasty experience with some 419ers over fifteen years ago in the process of trying to help strangers out. That experience left me scarred a bit. More than a bit because it made it a lot easier for me to walk away when I ought to stop and help.

However if you are a deeply religious person (as I try to be), there will be days when you will be forced to ask yourself some questions. Trying to live out one’s Christian life makes ignoring the less privileged impossible. At least the measure of charity is what we are told that eternal judgment will be based. In a situation where it is not easy to get the less privileged as a result of modernization, recourse still has to be made to the streets.

So the beggars still litter our streets and if you want to you can, like me, ignore sometimes, or all the time if you like but there will always be that someone who will not. It does not look like they will reduce anytime soon.

Keep faith.

THE SEX OF MY PROFESSION

Does the suitability of a profession depend on the sex of the person involved?

I can imagine a quick reader going through the question above and silently or even loudly answering with a NO. That does not mean however that they may not be people who will give a straight YES answer.

Personally, I had my answer way before I typed the question but as I examined my answer I could not help imagining how times have changed.  Before my growing up years, every boy wanted to be a doctor, an engineer or an architect. A girl with those aspirations would have simply been delving into a world that was not hers. By the time my childhood came to be, more girls were applauded for filling ‘medical doctor’ in the space next to any future ambition column.

It was not that any girl was ever refused admission into any higher institution into the engineering or architecture class or vice versa for a boy who wanted to be a nurse but it was simply an odd choice.

This reminds me of the first time I saw a male nurse. I stared hard, as if I had seen a man walking on his head.

‘Are you sure he is not a Doctor?’ I had asked my mama in vernacular.

She smiled and replied that there have always been male nurse even though they were very few.

By my undergraduate years there was more mixture of both sexes albeit little that mixture was. I remember one of the Students’ Union elections where voting was done on departmental basis. Each student had to queue according to his/her department. I had to assist a friend to locate her departmental queue so we had gone from queue to queue asking what department it was. My question met with lots of stares from several male pair of eyes in one of the queues before a confident ‘Engineering’ was answered. My companion looked at me and asked why I had bothered to ask seeing that they were all guys on the queue.

So back to the question whether there was a sex appropriate to a profession and vice versa.

There was a time when all the newspaper vendors on the streets of Nigeria were male. In fact I had then concluded with a secondary school classmate that one profession that was going to remain solely in the reins of male compatriots was the vendor. Ever since I began to see female vendors on our streets, I have learnt never to ascribe any profession to any sex. It does not matter how manly or womanly that profession appears to be. I mean what profession could be more feminine as that of a caterer/cook particularly in a country where every woman just has to know how to cook and there is no know or anticipated excuse for otherwise? Now we have seen male professional cooks. It has also ceased to be a surprise when one of them wins any cooking competition. Some organisations are also more comfortable with hiring a male cook rather than their female counterpart.

When the year started, I told myself that faux dreadlocks were going to be my signature hairstyle and began to shop for the appropriate beauty salon where I would get this done. A colleague referred me to one situated somewhere in the ever busy streets of Ogba. Inspite of my misgivings on the quality of work I would get, I was greatly relieved when I found out that the salon was run by male hairdressers. Rewind to twenty years ago, these young men would not have easily opted for this profession.

I remember when news was reported on a female auto mechanic. Her years of apprenticeship were also considered in the report. I could not help appreciating her drive as the report was given.

Again, is there a sex on any profession? In the wake of Biola Alabi and several females making their mark in what used to be a man’s world, I dare say that if modern day professionalism definitely does not contemplate sex as a deciding factor. So if you ever had to decide on a career of profession, do not ever let sex limit you. Neither should you expect an edge because of your sex.

Keep Faith.

AH! FEMININE TEARS?

It was mid morning Saturday. I told myself I was cruising as I drove through the highway. The truth was that I was tired to my bones. It was a good thing the road was not full, at least party makers were not all out to crowd the road. I had played tapes and CDs on my way to town that morning so I decided to listen to whatever my favorite station was airing at that moment. It was a talk program, I would have preferred music but since I was too tired to even change stations I listened.

The topic was rape. Frankly speaking at that moment I did not feel like listening to any gender sensitive issue but for some reason I stayed tuned. 

The speaker spoke deeply in pidgin even brought a rape victim whose identity was hidden to talk on her horrific experience.

Let me explain; I am not a feminist by any shot. The single sex secondary school I attended was probably the only sexist body I can associate myself to. When a colleague suggested that I join FIDA, I shook my head strongly. In trying to convince me to join, she explained that it was an umbrella for female lawyers and I had replied that was the same reason that would make me stay away.

Back to the matter, when this radio victim started her narration, I broke. I don’t think I would want to repeat her narration. I twitch whenever I think of it.

Another angle that interests me was the response of some listeners. One particular listener advised against provocative dressing as a preventive measure. I wondered if there we’re still people with this thought- line. I mean anyone who had a daughter, wife, sister, or niece ought to be more realistic when giving advices on this issue. As far as I know, provocative dressing has little to do with sexual violence. I am not saying that it has nothing to do with rape and other related sexual violence but trust me, when I say it has got little to do with it. Or how would one explain the reason for the females that are abused as children? In fact one of the victims who spoke that day said she first abused when she was three by an UNCLE.  Only recently Dylan Farrow claimed she was molested as a child by her adoptive father. It is sad that the protector can become the predator.

I was glad when the presenter noted that the provocative dressing angle was blaming the victim and that it would in no way encourage victim to report offences. It makes sense because no one would want to report a rape incident if all you would hear is, “How were you dressed?” “Did you sway in front of them?” and so on.

There is no use for us at any point to justify rape. Aside from shielding offenders from the law and possibly future healing (because I think rapists are sick), we create a society that could hurt every one of us, a society in which no one is safe. Do I need to emphasize that everyone has a female who is dear to him or her? And that no one knows for sure who the next victim could be? As feminine as the tears arising from sexual violence may seem, it is time we understand that the society is broken from these hurts.

...keep faith.

THE YEAR ENDS WITH A PARTY

Okay. Another year has just ended and I cannot help reminiscing about the things that marked my end of year. I mean aside from my usual time with family which has always been a way to end my year for as long as I remember.  What an eventful year 2013 had been.

The end of the year reminded me of the Road Safety Corps  campaign.

“The ember months are here again

              Drive carefully...”

These words have gradually become familiar.  The first time I they made sense to me I ran to my mother to find out what ‘ember months” meant. After her usual referral to the dictionary and not getting the definition there, she explained that it meant all the months ending with the letters MBER, that is, September to December. After trying in vain to understand why special care should be taken in those months, I had to go back to listen to her explanation of how it was essential for one to keep safe towards the end of the year while entertaining the hope that the coming year would meet one in good state, physically and otherwise.

As the innocence of childhood wore off, I too began to take care. The familiarity of those words did not commonize (is that a word?) its meaning. After all, who was the one that did not want to see the New Year? The community I grew up in liked life. That alone meant that majority of the people wanted to live life to the fullest.

Before I became solely responsible financially for my basic needs, the thought of getting new things was the major source of my excitement.  Well, even though time has passed and the girl I was has become a woman, I still made sure I got at least something new for myself, it did not have to be expensive, my end of year gift to me only had to be newly acquired. There have been years that I have been really broke and had even scolded myself for this practice but that was me.

One of my unlike towards the end of year was traffic; human and vehicular. The roads were usually crowded, the markets were too full and scammers were always on the prowl. I also hated the fact that there were always too many commitments. It did not matter to me if these commitments were parties or even weddings after all there was always very little time to enjoy them.

I remember trying to attend one of such parties towards the end of last year- a Sunday party- which meant I had to do church first. I felt I was already late by the time church was done as I had to make a ninety minutes journey to the venue. Anyway, I began my journey and silently prayed that I still remembered the route. That prayer was not answered, at least not in the way I wanted because after making one of my turns I noticed I could not see the next turn. So I decided to use my option B driving method which is to move in any way towards your perceived direction until you get to a familiar place and if not, seek help. This option implied I would get to the party later but I kept up with it. Somehow I hated to stop to ask for direction. I only resorted to it when I cannot view anything familiar or a direction sign.

I was in this state when I ran into them, or drove to the point where they had the stoppers. Some group of youths that had put lots of objects on the road to serve as stoppers. I had to stop. Irritation was what could best describe my stare as they explained to me that they were trying to raise fund for the upcoming end of year street carnival. The first thing that came to my mind was, “What is my business?”

You are right, if you thought I did not give any money to them but it got me thinking. Whose responsibility is it to sponsor any street carnival? Was raising funds for the carnival enough reason to block any road or better still harass road users?

The end of year comes with plenty definitely.  I always knew that so I did not have to be surprised when I saw this carving on a head just before the New Year. 

The youth was a coming in from the city and was on his village. My reaction was only a chuckle and a smile. I did not want to incur the youth’s wrath. As I wondered where and when I missed the trend I could not help imagining how those in the village would react on seeing him. Would they emulate him, silently wish they had it on or mock him?

I alighted at my bus stop and could not wait to share this hair style with my folks. I was glad I was able to steal a picture from him. So at home we had our laughs in between food and drinks in front of the television that no one was watching. Our own kind of party.

While we wait for 2014’s parties, keep faith!